Seán Maguire started for Preston against Sheffield Wednesday last week

If the 23-year-old gets the nod, it’ll feed into the idea that a player has to leave their own country — get on the ‘magic plane’ as Maguire’s ex-Cork City team-mate Garry Buckley put it — to be recognised.

City fans will remember how Kevin Doyle was called in by Ireland manager Brian Kerr after just a handful of games for Reading following his move in 2005.

More recently, in 2014, ex-Rebel Brian Lenihan was drafted in without having played for Hull City.

If Maguire is not named, there is another constituency which will decry O’Neill for overlooking an in-form striker when his team has scored just twice in their last three qualifiers.

But it boils down to the manager’s assessment as to whether he is ready.

Fans may not like to hear it but the League of Ireland is not an adequate ­testing ground to see whether players are good enough for international football.

Players like Shane Long are way ahead of Seán Maguire in the pecking order

European football is a better barometer and it was that which saw Andy Boyle and Daryl Horgan included for the qualifier against Austria in November when they were with Dundalk.

Neither featured but, had there been a friendly game immediately after, the likelihood is they would have made their debuts then as opposed to in March, against Iceland, by which stage they were with Preston.

Since June of last year, Maguire has played in 12 Europa League games, scoring six goals. But they were qualifyinground matches as opposed to the group stages, where Boyle and Horgan shone.

Three of the goals came against Levadia Tallinn of Estonia and two against Northern Ireland’s Linfield. Both teams come from leagues ranked lower than our own.

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Anthony Pilkington was the last player to make his Ireland debut in a competitive game, against Sweden in September 2013. It came after he had made 60 appearances in the Premier League, scoring 13 times.

Maguire has not done it at that level.

Jon Walters and Shane Long have, so, while there might be a case for him to provide cover for them both, there is none for him to start ahead of either.